Everything is easy for my daugter- this created problems!

Barbara - posted on 01/23/2009
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My 9 year old is gifted (I am not sure of her IQ, but I suspect she is gifted as opposed to highty gifted. Her problem is this.. everything has always come easy to her. She has excelled at so many things with very little effort, that it has made her a little lazy. She does not understand the value of working for an A. If something is hard for her, she gets very frusterated and says "I hate this" or "I cant do it." She does ballet, which is a challenge for her, so of course she says she hates it (she probaly doesnt hate it because every year I give her the option of doing it or not, and she always chooses to take the classes), but I feel it's importatant for her to do something that is "hard" for her. I feel like for her to be successful in life she has to be motivated to overcome challenges. Any thoughts or suggestions?

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Rozalynne - posted on 01/24/2009

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Having a 13 year old girl who has spent her entire life in a "gifted" education environment (up until this year she was in our public school's highly capable program with only 17 other kids her age) I have found that being in middle school in a more open environment has really helped her focus more on what she has in common with other kids not what makes her different. She has very little in her life that is difficult but this year tried out for sports and didnt make the team...but there were others that didnt make it either. So she is seeing that in many ways she is very much like other kids...the more you shelter them from normal kids and activities the less they are able to see outside "their" box and they think failure is not an option unless they see other people fail at the things they are great at...and survive. So they can fail at the things they are not great at and survive to....

She needs to be in a school environment that allows for her to move at her own pace and the teaching staff to help her move at the pace that is appropriate for her. We found a charter school that works that way and it has been much better. I have the kid who is both academically gifted and athletically gifted as well. It's hard to keep the challenge going.

Get her in an environment where she is challenged. If your school is not doing it, change schools. I did back when my oldest was 2nd grade. I could tell he was BORED where he was at, moved him to a local charter school and his new teacher did an iq test on him. He was 8 but iq at 12. So, she started pushing him to see how far he could go. Went through 3 grades of math in one school year

My daughter also excels, mostly academically and is musically inclined. When it came to dance class, riding lessons, sports of any sort or anything that involved coordination (like, even walking lol), she would get SO mad at herself. She would get sad and say the other kids were better than her. She is very much a perfectionist! I just told her that some kids are really good at sports and some kids are really smart. It's awesome to be really good at sports and it's awesome to be really smart but very few are born with the fortune to be very good at both! I told her to be thankful because some people are born without the fortune of either. If it were my daughter I would tell her that if she hates ballet so much that it WON'T be an option next time around. She'll have to make a decision at that point. One thing I would do with my daughter after an activity she hated is give her an allotted amount of time to vent. I would say you have 30 minutes to tell me how much you hated that and then you must move on. You can't let it affect your entire day. I would do the same kind of thing with a "terrible day" at school. On the ride home, if she had one of those days, I would tell her, tell me 4 terrible things about your day. I would listen without responding besides an "oh, really". Then, to end the conversation, I would ask her to tell me 4 positive things about her day. We would end the conversation on a positive note which seemed to make a HUGE difference in her mood and she had a chance to vent. I don't even have to ask her anymore. She just gets in the car and tells me the bad stuff then the positive stuff! Great communication! She's in a great mood by the time we get home and she does her homework and chores.

I know exactly how you feel. My 8 year old daughter is the same way. She slacks off a lot at school because she is actually bored. My daughter plays soccer, softball and basketball and gets so frustrated when she can't get it. She is a brainiac, not an athlete so she has a hard time accepting that someone else is better at it than her. But she still wants to play every year. I always give her the choice too and she always chooses to play. I think it is good for them to do something that is a challenge so they don't think they can just breeze through everything. And also so the other kids don't think that they are invinsible and don't can't do no wrong. I always tell her that she needs to work hard at everything she does. Regardless what it is, she needs to try her best cause when she gets older everything will be hard and there will be a lot of things she will have to overcome. If she is having a hard time with something, we discuss it and I try to explain to her how she can overcome that. She gets very frustrated when she can't do something and we have to deal with that as well which can be a big challenge.